


For Love of the Dragon

by Abby_Ebon



Series: It's Not A Rabbit Hat [76]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Ranma 1/2
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-19
Updated: 2014-02-19
Packaged: 2018-01-13 02:38:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1209637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Abby_Ebon/pseuds/Abby_Ebon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Karasu Kagami's prompt: Harry Potter/Ranma 1/2 with the prompt: Animangi or blackmail. Also pairings up to you but I'd prefer Musu. Mostly because I really dislike his treatment throughout the series...and Xianpu getting blown off by BAMF Harry for Musu is a scene to die for. ;)</p>
            </blockquote>





	For Love of the Dragon

**Author's Note:**

> (AN: for the sake of my giggling giving me more errors than I ordinary have I kept to Musu instead of Mousse, and Xianpu instead of Shampoo and Koron instead of Cologne and a Horai for Harry because otherwise, oh, the puns. I would spell Harry's name as Hairy, and call it a accident. As I love to play with the words, as we all know, otherwise what fun is it to be a writer?...)

 

It is not every day that Musu opens the Cat Café and finds a woman sleeping beside the door, because he has his hated glasses on, he knows that she is lovely. Her hair is black, but messy and clear enough she’s not been able to get it tamed before their meeting – of which she is unaware.

 

Musu finds that to be rude, and so crouches to wake her, a touch is all it takes and Musu is met with glaring green eyes, and Musu half fears he won’t get a chance to speak before he is hurting – because she might look like a treasure, but she is no mere trophy, too delicate to be touched – the look she gives Musu is full of fire.

 

He backs away a few steps from her personal space, hands aloft between them, not to defend himself but to show he is defenseless. Such fire as hers he recognizes as that of being a warrior’s – and to Musu’s way of thinking no one worthy of being named a warrior would harm someone who was helpless before them. There is no honor in it.

 

“Miss? You were sleeping on our steps….are you alright?” Musu asks, because while he does not _have_ to be polite to women, he was raised among women who were trained to be heroes and warriors it is the wise thing to do. This much Musu has learned from Xianpu’s great grandmother and father. Without their guidance he was an orphan, and belonged no where.

 

Once he had thought that when he grew up he would _have_ to marry Xianpu to keep his place in their life – but Xianpu had been raised to think of Musu as only her brother, and although she cared and loved him as a sister – as a lover, a wife, Xianpu would never be that to him. It went against everything she believed a wife and husband should be.

 

Musu regretted that it could not be, his dream, even as he longed for it – the life that could have been his as Xianpu’s husband. Musu shakes his head, chasing such thoughts away. The woman before him tilts her head and stares at him as if she’s read his thoughts upon his face and is intrigued by them. 

 

“Yes. I will be - are you serving tea?” Musu nods, for even if they had not been opening, a bit of tea seemed the least that could be given to someone who had apparently waited upon the doorstep for Cat Café to open.

 

He opens the door for her, and though she smiles in something more like amusement than thankfulness, she enters and seats herself in the corner where she can see nearly all the windows and doors. Xianpu’s great grandmother comes in, ready to take orders – it is Xianpu’s task to waitress and his own to clean up, and Xianpu’s father is the chef. Any one of them can make tea, however.

 

So it is not very strange for Musu to prepare to do so. Yet Xianpu’s great grandmother takes one look at the young woman that Musu had let into Cat Café and she snatches up the pot of water that had been simmering and splashes it upon the young woman – who isn’t a young woman at all, but a boy with black hair and green eyes and a smile for the old woman that is very fond.

 

“Hello, Koron my old friend.” The now young man stands and bows, to which the old woman bows back respectfully. Musu sees and stares but can not say he believes it.

 

“Do not old friend me, you vain fiend, what are you doing off your mountain?” She waves to where Hōraizan, the Treasure Mountain had once stood. The youth sighs and when old Koron sits he too does, shoving wet black hair behind his ears. His features are still slight and delicate, breakable, yes, like something fragile – but Musu does not think that this youth has ever been so broken he could not be mended.

 

“Well, it is no more – and do not now go calling me vain as if I’m some great greedy beast, old friend, do I not give you my very _skin_ to eat?” His smile is almost condescending, but his teeth – they aren’t normal, but sharp.

 

Musu has only seen one other person with teeth so sharp – Herb, who was descended from dragons. Musu thinks about this as he gets the tea pot from the table where Koron has set it and fills it and sets it to simmering the water within – the tea might be more delayed than it might have been, but Musu does not believe that the youth will mind.

 

“All mere shedding of your former glorious hide, and if you did not give them to me – well, you would still be a great beast as you are, but a lonely one.” The youth nods his dark head as if in agreement, Musu hadn’t really noticed that the other had had a pack under his robe, but it is so and the other brings it forward to sit between them on the table. His nails are sharp and less like human nails and more like talons – or claws, with fingers thin and strong. 

 

“This is true, and I have a gift for you, of course.” It is given to Koron, a packet of hide of a color that Musu has never seen the likes of. Koron reaches for it and handles it with care, it is dragon’s skin Musu knows – and more, it is this youth’s skin.

 

“I thank you, I think – but why do you come here yourself? Do you not enjoy my visits?” Koron’s brow furls in a frown. Musu had wondered where she went every year, a journey she let no one accompany her on claiming it to be too dangerous – and if she met and got a dragon’s skin at the end of it, Musu knew her claim must be true. He wonders how old this dragon is, that he calls Koron old friend – and she is over four hundred, Musu knows.

 

“My home is no more, and I miss the Byankala Mountains where you and I first met.” The youth’s eyes slid shut, as if sleepy, and Koron strikes him with her staff. It is a thoughtless and mad thing to do, but the youth – the dragon – he not only lets Koron get away with it, he laughs it off. Yet when Koron straightens up to speak, he quiets himself to listen.

 

“You must never go back there, you were caught there once – by…by Musk Dynasty, and they are not as gone as I had thought them. I met Herb, and he must be of your blood, though he is not nearly as lovely as you.” Koron goes quiet and Musu is quite aware of how long her history with this dragon must be. They care for each other deeply. That is obvious. The youth shakes his head, as if the memory of what must have been done to him can be gotten rid of so easily.

 

Musu’s hand upon the tea package shakes; he well knows what the Musk Dynasty once did to beasts whose movements they admired in motion. They had once only would mimic them - until mimicry was not enough – they took beasts and plunged them into the Spring of Drowned Girl, and mated with them so the next generation of sons would ‘naturally’ have the ability and traits they so admired at birth. For those forced mothers, they otherwise hadn’t cared – but Musu’s people had.  

 

“That was long ago, Koron, can I not forgive people?” The youth pats Koron’s hands which are folded over his skin, as if to protect it. Musu knows how hard Koron has worked all her life to make her village and her people respect their mothers and sisters and daughters and all women, yet still there is the Kiss of Death between their women and women who are strangers.

 

“You may forgive, Horai, but I do not forget.” It occurs to Musu then that Horai as Koron calls him must come from Hōraizan, the Treasure Mountain – that the mountain is named after him. 

 

Musu takes a breath, and picks up the tea cup and it’s saucer, keeping his hands steady and his steps light as he goes to Horai’s side and sets them before the dragon youth, respectful, not daring to meet his eyes – although how Horai could tell this with Musu wearing his thick glasses, Musu does not ponder upon, the dragon would find some way to know.

 

“Your grandson, old friend..?” Horai’s voice is soft with the question, and Koron glances up at Musu with a small smile. She sees plainly the interest in those green eyes that Musu does not dare look to see.

 

“No, Horai, are you blind? The boy is not of my blood.” Shocked, and hurt, Musu stepped away his glasses clumsily falling into his face so he could finally properly see the desire in Horai’s green eyes – and the smugness in Koron’s own eyes.

 

Once Koron had loved Horai as Musu loved Xianpu, and it was not to be - yet out of an urge to make Horai jealous she had shown interest in Happosai, but that interest had become curiosity and affection and true love. She had taken Happosai to her bed and into her heart, and by the children of their blood she had never regretted it. A fate that Horai did not share, because of the damned Musk Dynasty, she wanted Horai to know happiness – and for Musu to find it.

 

Horai stretched before Musu, boldly in an elegant display of power and beauty, satisfied with Koron’s answer, it went unspoken between the two old friends that of course Koron and her family cared for their adopted Musu – he would not be here at the Cat Café if she did not. Musu swallowed to see Horai stretch so provocatively and invitingly – for, for him -or someone. 

 

Xianpu giggled from behind Musu’s back, and he swallowed his hurt at that sound, sure that Horai’s display had been meant for her eyes.

 

“Great-grandmother, is this man meant to replace Ranma-kun in my affections?” Xianpu asks, teasing, and in that moment Musu doesn’t love her. He still cares, but it hurts – and the hurt he knows shows plainly on his face. Xianpu has always been blunt she would rather have what she wants than consider the feelings of others, it comes from being the great-granddaughter of the leader of their people. It is expected that she should have who she wants and when she wants them.

 

It is expected that she think of her future and the future of her blood, her people – and not Musu’s own trampled feelings.

 

“Not at all, Xianpu – I still expect you to marry Muko-dono.” Koron waves away Xianpu’s words. She turns her eyes away and does not see Xianpu’s shock – does not see her look to Musu’s back with narrow eyes, does not see Xianpu consider Musu for the first time a threat, in the way, a rival for the affections of the one she desires. Koron does not see – but Horai does.

 

Horai looks between Musu and Xianpu and shows his sharp teeth and shifts his skin, the black hair growing over a body that becomes serpentine and thickens as it lengthens, the hair becoming scaled over skin, all that is the same is the green eyes, human looking but furious on Musu’s behalf. If Horai is beautiful as a youthful girl or boy, he is lovely as a dragon, and Musu is breathless at the sight of the sleek scales and metallic gleam upon them. 

 

Xianpu gasps and falls back, for Horai seems to fill all the empty spaces within the Cat Café with his presence if not his body, he hisses at her warningly hovering over Musu, and then speaks when Koron huffs at him in something like laughter. 

 

“You will not think to harm what is _mine_ , Xianpu- will you?” Xianpu can only shake her head over and over in denial.

 

“If you will have me, Musu?” Horai asks softer, less of a threat, but not quite a question – for who would ever say no to a dragon? That person, brave or foolish – is certainly not Musu.   

 

“Of, of course I would – will.” Musu reaches out, unable to stand simply seeing the great wild beauty before him and being unable to touch. His fingers thread through silken whiskers, and Horai makes a sound like a purring groan in pleasure.

 

“What’s this, you great lazy brute? Stealing away Musu without any proper dowry in exchange?” Koron prods at his metallic black hide with her toe. Horai sighs regretfully as he turns his attention away from his Musu and nudges toward Koron a pack that he had taken his shed skin from but was yet full with his five clawed foot.

 

“You will find a proper treasure of a dowry in there, my thieving old friend.” Koron opens it and cackles to find the cold water natured Pail of Preservation and the hot watered natured Pot of Liberation, the two sealers of Jusenkyo curses.

 

“Oh, this is good, very good indeed worthy Horai.” Koron pats his scaled hide fearlessly and approving, and Musu finds himself wrapped in the length of that serpentine body which shifts beneath his touch until a green eyed boy gives him the Kiss of Marriage and Musu is content with his lot in life for the first time in a long time.


End file.
